CO2 tagged posts

China will aim to hit peak emissions before 2030 and for carbon neutrality by 2060, President Xi Jinping has announced. Mr Xi outlined the steps when speaking via videolink to the UN General Assembly in New York. The announcement is being seen as a significant step in the fight against climate change. 

China is the world’s biggest source of carbon dioxide, responsible for around 28% of global emissions.

With global climate negotiations stalled and this year’s conference of the parties (COP26) postponed until 2021, there had been little expectation of progress on the issue at the UN General Assembly.

However China’s president surprised the UN gathering by making a bold statement about his country’s plans for tackling emissions. 

He called on all countries to achieve a green re...

The ocean absorbs a lot more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than previously thought, suggesting certain climate models were wrong, according to a new study.

Carbon emissions from human activity does not just go straight into the atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up. While a large percentage of it does – roughly half – some of it is absorbed into the ocean. And now new research has found there has been some miscalculations on how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean.

The cooler the ocean, the more CO2 it absorbs. However, just a few metres beneath the surface, the temperature of the ocean begins to drop drastically.

Now scientists believe previous estimates may have been as much as 10 percent off.

Professor Andrew Watson, of the University of Exeter’s Glo...

The bottom of the sea can be a gassy place. Underwater volcanoes and vents spew carbon dioxide (CO2) near the crevices where tectonic plates rift apart. Hungry bacteria convert decomposing creatures of the deep into natural methane. And, new research from Japan reminds us, enormous, miles-wide reservoirs of greenhouse gases lurk in untouched pockets just below the seafloor.

In a study published Aug. 19 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of researchers discovered one such pocket at the bottom of the Okinawa Trough, a massive submarine basin sitting southwest of Japan where the Philippine Sea plate is slowly sinking below the Eurasian plate. Using seismic waves to map the trough’s structure, the team found a huge gas pocket stretching at least 2...